One would hope that would happen, but the powerful call of the almighty dollar is clearly becoming stronger and stronger for them.

Honestly, the value proposition from WoW has gone down in my eyes in the past couple years. Spending $15 a month in any of the several quality F2P titles out there typically gets you more than the $15/mo that is required just to play, and the only reason WoW isn't completely blown out of the water in this respect is because they've had over 8 years to develop a backlog of content that people can spend time in. More and more F2P/B2P/subcriptionless games are letting you access all/nearly all of the content for free and putting vanity/convenience in the store, and a few are even letting you earn these same cosmetics/conveniences in the game if you so choose.

In terms of what you get for $15 a month, there are several good options out there that offer as much or more than WoW does for the same price, so yeah...the value proposition has definitely gone down. Throwing convenience micro-transactions on top of it - which, unlike the one time purchase mounts and pets, are meant to be purchased repeatedly - not helping.

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Originally Posted by tonyalmeida

The only problem I have with this statement is its like a lot of others that make the assumption that there is a slippery slope that Blizzard has to slide down. The problem is that people are comparing the Cash Shop of a game with 7+ million subs, to the cash shops of F2P games that are lucky to break 1 million. An XP pot is no where near gear or any other p2w item.

The majority of cash shops in F2P games in the Western market don't sell pay to win items (anything by Perfect World notwithstanding) - their bread and butter is convenience and vanity. Selling convenience for cash is mostly accepted (some groups consider even this to be pay to win...check out GGG's stance regarding Path of Exile) because of the lack of a required fee and the need for the company to monetize something, and convenience monetizes incredibly well.

It is absolutely devastating to see Blizzard pursuing this new double-dipping model. They're killing the entire appeal of video-games for me; to me, video-games present you with a new world, totally removed from the real one, giving you an opportunity to exercise your own work-ethic and willingness to overcome adversity, regardless of real-life circumstances. With this, they're basically saying "People with money get to have it better than anyone else, even in your 'Fantasy' world". It's such a betrayal, I genuinely hope somebody at Blizzard wakes up and stops this, because of this hits live, then I'm officially done with Blizzard and all its franchises.

Also, I get that Ghostcrawler is a gameplay designer, and probably doesn't value story nearly as much as other staff. However, it does seem odd how readily he seems to belittle the notion of having gameplay service Lore, even just on rare occasion. There is absolutely no reason that Gilneas and Ashenvale couldn't be moved back under the Alliance's banner, but he seems to almost scoff at the notion, as though it's not even worthy of consideration.

The only problem I have with this statement is its like a lot of others that make the assumption that there is a slippery slope that Blizzard has to slide down. The problem is that people are comparing the Cash Shop of a game with 7+ million subs, to the cash shops of F2P games that are lucky to break 1 million. An XP pot is no where near gear or any other p2w item.

MMOs are not that large while F2P games in general have gotten quite large like LoL's 32 million players with one of the main sources of income coming from cosmetic character skins.

Originally Posted by Berethos08

Honestly, the value proposition from WoW has gone down in my eyes in the past couple years. Spending $15 a month in any of the several quality F2P titles out there typically gets you more than the $15/mo that is required just to play, and the only reason WoW isn't completely blown out of the water in this respect is because they've had over 8 years to develop a backlog of content that people can spend time in. More and more F2P/B2P/subcriptionless games are letting you access all/nearly all of the content for free and putting vanity/convenience in the store, and a few are even letting you earn these same cosmetics/conveniences in the game if you so choose.

Not to mention Steam sales and price reductions in general of games that not only offer something new but also engaging for a comparable price or less based on rate of content consumption as I have gotten older and play games less. I picked up borderlands 2 for ten bucks and that will likely last me a couple of months. I picked up MassEffect3 at launch and still play the multiplayer over a year later which had gotten a number of free multi player DLC. I have been playing it this long because it is fun and not because they dangle epics in front of my face. There are many other games out there that are offering engaging gameplay for casual gamers that WoW doesnt target anymore for less monetary investment.

It is absolutely devastating to see Blizzard pursuing this new double-dipping model. They're killing the entire appeal of video-games for me; to me, video-games present you with a new world, totally removed from the real one, giving you an opportunity to exercise your own work-ethic and willingness to overcome adversity, regardless of real-life circumstances. With this, they're basically saying "People with money get to have it better than anyone else, even in your 'Fantasy' world". It's such a betrayal, I genuinely hope somebody at Blizzard wakes up and stops this, because of this hits live, then I'm officially done with Blizzard and all its franchises.

Also, I get that Ghostcrawler is a gameplay designer, and probably doesn't value story nearly as much as other staff. However, it does seem odd how readily he seems to belittle the notion of having gameplay service Lore, even just on rare occasion. There is absolutely no reason that Gilneas and Ashenvale couldn't be moved back under the Alliance's banner, but he seems to almost scoff at the notion, as though it's not even worthy of consideration.

Right... and why would they introduce an item they don't want everyone to use?

If they wanted it to be rare they'd put it behind a skill-cap, not a pay-wall.

That's a fair argument I guess.

Only issue with that is that this isn't a service, or access to one. This is something they've added to the game several times for free. The fact that they're starting to charge for it now shows a scary change in their philosophy.

How so, we do not own anything in wow - we pay for access to thier server. It is a lot more similar than we might think.

How so, we do not own anything in wow - we pay for access to thier server. It is a lot more similar than we might think.

I think the Issue is that we are already charged to play the game, to access their servers, to be further charge by micro transactions is a scary turn.
It leave the door open for speculation as to where this turn might take the game, With this "catch up" feature being something you need to Pay extra for I feel it would open the door for people who have the money but not the skill and LFD and LFR will get even worse, We already have DK's 20 lvls in advance from where they started at lvl 55 that have no clue how to play their class.

Aside from the obvious ingame worries there is also the worry that they take it a step further, letting you buy Gear or other items from their "in game store" that gives you an edge on other playes of equal level or gear that can be aquired no where else.

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Originally Posted by Claymore

It is absolutely devastating to see Blizzard pursuing this new double-dipping model. They're killing the entire appeal of video-games for me; to me, video-games present you with a new world, totally removed from the real one, giving you an opportunity to exercise your own work-ethic and willingness to overcome adversity, regardless of real-life circumstances. With this, they're basically saying "People with money get to have it better than anyone else, even in your 'Fantasy' world". It's such a betrayal, I genuinely hope somebody at Blizzard wakes up and stops this, because of this hits live, then I'm officially done with Blizzard and all its franchises.

Also, I get that Ghostcrawler is a gameplay designer, and probably doesn't value story nearly as much as other staff. However, it does seem odd how readily he seems to belittle the notion of having gameplay service Lore, even just on rare occasion. There is absolutely no reason that Gilneas and Ashenvale couldn't be moved back under the Alliance's banner, but he seems to almost scoff at the notion, as though it's not even worthy of consideration.

I agree with you 100%, I've played other MMo's that have an "ingame store" its terrible and alienates the players further, our community took a hard hit with LFD and LFR both in game and out, and I would hate to see it furthered by the "in gmae" store.

5.4 still looks on pace for Aug 27th or September 10th. Earnings call just said 5.4 is launching in the "coming weeks" ie: 4-6 weeks. (for the record the 3rd isn't an option because Sept 2nd is a holiday)

We already knew that was going to be the timeframe but it pretty much rules out the 20th.

Titan will not be a subscription based MMO.
The decline in subscribers in Q2 was more evenly split between Asia and the West.
Blizzard will continue to work on making the process of rejoining the game smoother.
The subscriber churn rate was very positively impacted by Patch 5.2 and 5.3.
Blizzard All-Stars is in wider internal testing and will be talked about more later this year.
Diablo 3 has sold over 12 million copies.

Is EXTREMELY bad news and for those zealots that still support blindly, a final nail in coffin. This is extremely bad news. Where has my game gone, the one that hooked half the planet? "Well, the answer is, and according to us here at Blizzard, the best possible news for you, we have been very hard at work!!!! We can soon announce other games..."

WHAT

"ipad games, free!!" You can play BUT buy cards

"and we made a real money store...."

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Guys I will say this, I have been gaming since 1981, no kidding. What I see now is a mess. What will happen is free classic servers will take off. I am going to find one tonight.

Doesn't matter though, it's very clear this game is in a bad state now. They want to kill the epic.

Also, I get that Ghostcrawler is a gameplay designer, and probably doesn't value story nearly as much as other staff. However, it does seem odd how readily he seems to belittle the notion of having gameplay service Lore, even just on rare occasion. There is absolutely no reason that Gilneas and Ashenvale couldn't be moved back under the Alliance's banner, but he seems to almost scoff at the notion, as though it's not even worthy of consideration.

I think he "scoff" at the notion of having the environment artists go back in to re-touch up the place just because of lore. Those artist could be put to work on new gameplay content.

Not exactly happy about this myself - Seriously when is Silvermoon going to be repaired? When are we going to get back Gnomeregan? - but that's that.

Yep why don't you go out and farm that 5% droprate single use item and come back and tell us just how much "better" it is. The store flask is there without any sort of rng and all it requires is money, can even get as many as you want. Where as the dread wastes item has some of the worst rare mob rng in pandaria and you only get one, in the time it takes you to farm even one flask(if you're not extremely lucky) you could have gained all those levels you wanted to gain with the flask without it.

WOW!!!! That lecture about about colors of item names and the colors of the items itself is a GIANT slap in the face of the midcore crybabies. "Casuals" and "hardcores" really don't give a damn.
I'm glad they are ALMOST open about they are sick of people asking for content made to lock other out, so those who found away can rub it in their faces. It's WRONG and NO SERIOUS developers should help with it.

Now they only need to address the "lore-bias" crybabies and tell them that biasing the gameplay at their side is not what balanced game means.

I can see you did not have any skills at all to do anything in WoW before it became really really easy, thankfully your kind cried so much everything got nerfed to a kindergarten level and every one is now "oh so awesome".

You guys do know that the EXP pots won't be available on US or EU realms, right?

And yet you seem to have failed to watch the video on the front page, that's an english ptr, last I checked english isn't the primary lanquage in Asia. If this was Asia only they would have a build separate for it in Asia, by putting this in the US/EU builds it means they have every intention of bringing it live in those areas too, you can thank everyone who bought those hats for this and showing blizz they will buy even more.

And yet you seem to have failed to watch the video on the front page, that's an english ptr, last I checked english isn't the primary lanquage in Asia. If this was Asia only they would have a build separate for it in Asia, by putting this in the US/EU builds it means they have every intention of bringing it live in those areas too, you can thank everyone who bought those hats for this and showing blizz they will buy even more.

Or, "asian" is not the primary language of the WoW devs... Asia WoW doesnt have its own devs to create such a shop, probably only translators.

Another thing that gets me is the general chat when inside the Garrison. It totally reminds me of every prison film I've ever watched. The prisoners confined to their cells are talking to each other through the walls. Their chat is mostly pointless, vulgar and revolving around stuff they ll do once they get out. This is EXACTLY the content of every Garrison chat I've ever had to tolerate.

So enduring elixir is going to cost 250 and 1250 something every time 1 to 5 hrs will the be $1 for one elixir and $5 for 5? Thats certainly a money pit I wouldnt want to drop money into. I heard these buffs where going to be permanent but since they are not I wont be getting any.